Men, power and caring relationships

Power is a controversial subject. In this article we reject the notion that power is simply a matter of the exercise of control over others. Instead, we posit the view that power is a complex phenomenon which is constantly negotiated and renegotiated between social actors. We examine this idea by looking at men working as carers and consider how power is used in caring relationships through the use of case materials. Our analysis reveals that no one party to an interaction is either all powerful or all powerless. Taking this idea through into empowering practice means that carers need to create spaces in which people can exercise a greater sense of agency through their interaction with others.     

Interaction between Voluntary and Statutory Social Service Provision in Sweden: A Matter of Welfare Pluralism,Substitution or Complementarity?

Many welfare states have met with criticism and it has been argued that they are in crisis. Simultaneously, there has been a greater openness to voluntary work as an alternative to statutory services, for example in Sweden. Sometimes the activities of voluntary organizations have been seen as complementary to those of local authorities; at other times this issue has been addressed in terms of welfare pluralism. However, countries with strong welfare states have often been assumed to have insignificant voluntary work—as claimed in substitution theory. The purpose of this article is to examine variation in welfare service provision in the light of welfare pluralism, substitution theory and complementarity theory. The study was carried out in the area of support for relatives of older people in Sweden. It was conducted by means of national questionnaire surveys of voluntary organizations and local authorities in 1999 and 2002. In this period, there was an increase in statutory service provision and more voluntary organizations were involved in service provision. However, it is yet too early to describe this in terms of welfare pluralism. Neither was any evidence found for substitution theory. Furthermore, overlaps in service provision from voluntary organizations and local authorities question complementarity theory, which assumes that different actors specialize in different tasks. Nevertheless, the actors tended to be complementary at a local level. It is suggested that this complementarity might be explained by ideological support for a norm of complementarity.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EXAMINATION BEHAVIOR

A unique examination strategy in first‐year microeconomics courses is used to test for gender differences in examination behavior. Students have the possibility of attaining a seminar bonus on the final exam for near‐perfect seminar attendance and are given two voluntary initial quizzes during the semester. At the final exam, the scores received on initial quizzes can either be accepted as is, or students can attempt to improve their marks by answering similar quiz questions on the exam. Results suggest that female students are more likely to take initial quizzes and receive a seminar bonus but are less likely to re‐take quiz questions on the final exam. These results suggest higher risk aversion, less overconfidence, and more self‐discipline or less procrastination among female students relative to male students. Our estimated behavioral differences may have important implications in terms of final grades on the course. (JEL I21, J16, A12, A14)     

A comparison of family and neighborhood effects on grades, test scores, educational attainment and income��evidence from Sweden

This paper compares sibling and neighborhood correlations in school performance, educational attainment and income as a way to learn whether the neighborhood where a child grows up in might explain parts of the sibling similarities found in previous sibling correlation studies. The data are based on a cohort of nearly 13,000 individuals born in 1953 and their siblings, all of whom grew up in the Stockholm area. The results show that neighborhood correlations are in general very small and in particular they are much smaller than the sibling correlations. Living in the same neighborhood does not seem to add much to the sibling similarities.     

The Prevalence and Course of Pathological Gambling in the Mood Disorders

The objective of the current investigation was to examine the prevalence of pathological gambling (PG) in a psychiatric sample with a history of mood disorder, and the concurrent and longitudinal association of PG and mood disorder symptoms according to retrospective report. A total of 275 (100 male, 175 female) psychiatric outpatients in Ontario, Canada, with a lifetime diagnosis of a depressive (n = 138) or bipolar disorder (n = 137), completed the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, South Oaks Gambling Screen and Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation. Correlational and cross-lagged panel analyses evaluated the relation between PG and mood disorder symptom course. The prevalence of PG was elevated within patients with a mood disorder; there was no difference across diagnosis. Concurrent PG and mood disorder symptoms were positively correlated; however, longitudinal analyses revealed no evidence for an association between PG and mood disorder symptoms when symptom stability was taken into account. Despite the elevated prevalence of PG within mood disorders, and the concurrent association between PG and mood disorder symptoms, no direct association was found between these types of pathology. Prospective designs and intervening variables are required to advance understanding of the etiological associations between these disorders.     

Reclaiming Life: Six Consumers of Mental Health Services Talk About What Helped and What Did Not Help Them Get Their Lives Back

This article summarizes a roundtable discussion held at Thresholds in Chicago, Illinois in September 2012, where six people diagnosed with serious mental illness talked about what helped and did not help them recover and successfully reclaim their lives. Their comments, taken as part of their personal narratives, can help enhance understanding of the recovery process. The discussion is organized by the themes that emerged: considering life as distinct from diagnosis, meeting basic needs, empowerment, education, community, faith and hope, healthy thinking, peers, and focus on wellness. Panel members also offer advice for mental health service providers.     

Environmental justice at the heart of social work practice: Greening the profession

Social workers face many contemporary challenges. Alongside the difficulties of upholding human rights, social justice and active citizenship, are those of affirming environmental justice and care for planet earth in and through social work practice and addressing climate change and other disasters. I call for social workers to take action that addresses these issues as a strong, united profession that works alongside dispossessed and marginalised people who do not get their share of global resources, despite their limited ecological footprint. I suggest a new paradigm for practice rooted in environmental justice that enhances the well‐being of people, the flora, fauna and the ecosystem that sustains and supports us all – green social work, for practitioners supporting life in one interdependent world.     

Re-Mediating Second Language Acquisition: A Sociocultural Perspective for Language Development

This article provides a cultural-historical (CHAT) analysis of the practices used by an effective teacher of Latino/a children previously classified as “underachieving” and “beginning/novice” English Language Learners. Although the teacher would not describe her practices in strict CHAT, or sociocultural theory (SCT) terms, our analysis shows that teaching practices in this classroom are better understood using a SCT model rather than more prevalent second language acquisition (SLA) models that dominate the field of bilingual/English as a Second Language education. We describe the fundamental limitations of SLA assumptions about learners vis-à-vis a SCT perspective and use classroom and case study data to illustrate how a CHAT perspective illuminates this teacher's practices. From a CHAT perspective, teaching and learning are socially reorganized around the mediation of dynamic learner identities and include shifts in expert–novice status, dialogic interactions, and the use of innovative mediational tools (e.g., keystrokes on a calculator) to promote academic writing and oral communication. The mediational reorganization described in the classroom opened up access to students who might have been dismissed by a SLA model as “incapable” of engaging in such tasks. We draw on classroom-level data (i.e., standardized scores in reading and math) as well as the work of selected focal students to illustrate our case.     

The futility of child therapy

Summary If one takes into consideration modern communication and family systems theory, it is apparent that the therapist's effectiveness may be greatly hampered in situations where she works with the child alone in a play therapy situation. Seeing a child alone in play therapy often tends to play into the already existing double bind situations in a family. The family aims at rejecting new behavior patterns which emerge because it has adapted to the problem behavior. By seeing the child and related family members, an open therapeutic contract can be established aimed at educating and preparing the family to be more receptive to new behaviors via new means of communication. The therapist becomes the active intervening agent in the system, available to all of the members. With the therapist serving as the nurturer which the family lacked, its members learn how to be available to each other in a new way. Once nurturance occurs, the family members feel strengthened to maturate and respond differently to each other.     

Psychometric properties of the work environment impact scale: a cross-cultural study

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Work Environment Impact Scale in the United States and Sweden. Thirteen American and four Swedish occupational therapists used the scale (in English and Swedish respectively) to rate 21 (11 American and 10 Swedish) subjects. Results of a Rasch analysis of the data, indicate that the items work well together to measure the construct of work environment impact. The scale is also suitably matched to the clients in this study and effectively discriminated different levels of work environment impact. The findings also suggest that both language versions of the scale are equivalent and that the scale is culture-free.